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Canadian  Instituta  for  Hiatorical  Microraproductiont  /  Institut  Canadian  da  microraproduetiont  hittoriquaa 


Technical  and  Bibliographic  Notts  /  Not«>  tachniquas  et  bibliographiquM 


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:6x 


30X 


V! 


24X 


28  X 


32* 


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E.J.    Pratt   Library 
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or  illuatratad  impression. 


Tha  laat  rvcordad  frame  on  each  microfiche 
shall  contain  the  symbol  — ^  (meaning  "CON- 
TINUED"), or  the  symbol  V  (meaning  "END"), 
whichever  applies. 

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required.  The  following  diagrams  illustrate  the 
method: 


L'exemplaira  film*  fut  reproduit  grice  A  la 
gin*rositi  de: 

Victoria  University,   Toronto 

E.J.    Pratt   Library 
Les  imagas  suivantas  ont  At*  raproduitas  avec  la 
plus  grand  soin,  compta  tanu  de  la  condition  at 
de  la  nettet*  de  I'exempiaire  film*,  et  en 
conformit*  avec  lea  conditiona  du  contrat  da 
filmaga. 

Les  exemplaires  originaux  dont  la  couverture  an 
pepier  eat  imprimie  sont  filmis  en  commencant 
par  la  premier  plat  at  an  tarminant  soit  par  la 
darniire  page  qui  comporte  une  empreinte 
d'impression  ou  d'illustration,  soit  par  la  second 
plat.  st»lon  la  cas.  Tous  les  autras  exemplaires 
originaux  sont  filmis  an  commandant  par  la 
premiere  pege  qui  comporte  une  empreinte 
d'impression  ou  d'illustration  et  en  terminant  par 
la  darni*re  paga  qui  comporte  une  telle 
empreinte. 

Un  dea  symbolas  suivants  apparaitra  sur  la 
darniire  image  de  cheque  microfiche,  selon  le 
caa:  le  symbols  — »  signifie  "A  SUIVRE ',  le 
symbols  ▼  signifie  "FIN". 

Les  cartas,  planches,  tableaux,  etc.,  peuvent  etra 
filmis  A  dea  taux  de  reduction  diffArents. 
Lorsque  le  document  est  trop  grand  pour  Atre 
reproduit  en  un  seul  clichA,  il  est  film*  A  partir 
da  Tangle  supArieur  gauche,  de  gauche  A  droita. 
et  de  haut  an  bas.  en  prenant  la  nombra 
d'imagea  nAcassaire.  Las  diagrammes  suivants 
illustrant  la  mAthoda. 


1 

2 

3 

4 

5 

6 

MKtOCOrV   nsoWTION  TBT  CHAIT 

(ANSI  ond  ISO  TEST  CHART  No.  2) 


A 


/APPLIED  IM^OE    Inc 


■r.         ^6&3   Cast   Uoirt   SirMi 

^         Roch«l#f,   N««*   YjTk         14609       USA 

(?'«)  ♦«2-03O0 -PhofW 

(716)  2M-5M9-Fo» 


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J'/  Itrty^         /J^>U«r**        c/^*A  Vifc        Ctnm^  e^^-^is^^^ 


THE  AGE  OF   HOMER 


By  GOLDVVIN    SMITH 


REPKIMEO   FROM   THE 


^mmcan  liiisitonrttt  ^tx\m 


VOL.  VII     No.  I 


OCTOBER    igoi 


.mm 


TlIK  AGK  OF  lUniKR 


ABOVI'!  all  other  works  of  poetic  art,  in  tiic  full  sense  of  that 
term,  are  tlie  dramas  of  Shakespeare  ami  the  poems  of  I  lomer. 
In  what  other  poems,  except  in  Shakespeare's  tlranias,  shall  we 
find  such  a  fjalaxy  of  characters,  so  varied  and  so  sustained  as  we 
find  in  the  H'uui  and  Oiiysuy'^  In  the  -iiv/./V/ there  can  hardly  be 
said  to  be  more  than  one  character,  while  that  one  is  wantinj^  in  in- 
terest. In  Dante  the  characters  are  historical.  In  I'nraiiisi-  Lost 
there  is  but  one,  which  represents  the  majesty  of  evil.  The  deity  is 
abstract  deity  ;  the  angels  are  aii-^'ls  ;  the  pictures  of  Adam  and 
Eve,  however  beautifal  in  their  way,  are  pictures  of  perfect  innocence. 
Where  else  shall  we  find  such  a  wealth  of  vignettes  in  the  form  of 
similes?  Where  such  a  picture  of  conjugal  love  as  the  p;irting  of 
Hector  and  Andromache  ?  Where  such  a  fairy-tale  as  the  Oiiyssi}' 
with  the  Isle  of  Calypso,  Circe,  the  Sir-w,  the  I.otus-eaters,  the 
hall  of  Aeolus,  the  Phaeacians  ?  How  co.ipletely  have  these  crea- 
tions of  a  poet  of  the  dawn  taken  hold  on  the  imagination  of  the 
world !  The  least  artistic  passages  in  appearance  are  the  recur- 
rences of  commonplace  descriptions  of  commonplace  matters,  such 
as  navigation,  sacrifice  and  feasting  ;  yet  even  these  have  more  the 
air  of  refrain  than  of  careless  repetition.  Moral  blemishes,  such  as 
the  repulsive  character  of  Athene,  or  the  atrocities  ascribed  to 
Achilles,  arc  faults  of  primitive  ethics  or  national  prejudices,  not 
failures  of  art.  Wonderfully  close  Homer  comes  to  us  across  the 
ages.  Modern  pathos  can  go  no  deeper  than  Andromache  lament- 
ing that  her  Hector,  slain  by  Achilles,  will  not  from  his  death-bed 
stretch  out  his  arms  to  her  and  say  that  pregnant  word  {n'jxn.in>  iTToz), 
on  which  she  might  brood  amidst  her  tears  for  the  rest  of  her  days. 
Sentimental  appreciation  of  the  picturesque  we  do  not  expect  in  a 
primitive  and  unspiritual  age,  any  more  than  we  expect  romantic 
love  ;  but  the  Homeric  descriptions  of  the  sea.  the  storm,  the  calm. 


C^'i'.i.'.A.VA 


Gold'icin  Smith 


tlic  star-lit  heavens,  imply  on  the  part  of  the  writer  .soinethin}r  at 
kast  of  the  cmoii  iti  which  they  awaken  in  us.  The  descriptions 
of  the  dreamer's  sensations '  and  of  the  play  of  the  wanderer's 
memory  are  wonderfully  nvMJern  in  their  refinement  and  subtlety. 
Nor,  if  our  ears  tell  us  true,  in  spite  of  probable  differences  of  pro- 
nunciation, is  the  metrical  art  in  these  |]ocms  inferior  to  theii  poetic 
excellence.  Instances  without  numb»T  might  be  cited  of  what 
sounds  to  us  the  happy  adaptation  of  the  music  of  a  passage  to  its 
sense.     The  lines  describing  Jupiter's  nod  of  assent '  is  one  of  them. 

To  find  a  time  and  place  before  recorded  civilization  at  which 
poetic  art  can  have  reached  a  height  only  once  afterwards  attained, 
is  the  I  lomeric  problem,  very  interesting,  and  at  the  same  time  very 
tantalizing,  since  means  of  a  chronological  solution  we  have  none. 
\Ve  can  only  hoix,-  to  determine  the  political,  sociil  and  aesthetic  date. 

The  single  authcship  of  the  Odyssey  is  not  much  contested, 
and  that  of  the  Iliad  seems  to  me  hardly  contestable.  The  patch- 
work theory,  started  by  Wolf  and  carried  to  an  extreme  length  by 
Lachmann,  was  the  offspring  of  a  Germany  whose  learning  at  that 
time  w  as  greater  than  her  taste  and  judgment.  The  theory  of  Grote, 
who  regards  the  Iliad  as  a  nucleus  with  superadditions,  is  not  the 
result  of  original  investigation  but  is  the  Wolf- Lachmann  theory  in 
full  retreat.  Kditorial  patching  in  places  there  may  have  been. 
This  was  likely  enough  in  the  course  of  transmission  and  revision. 
It  must  surely  be  .seen  that  the  unity  of  the  Iliad  is  not  mechanical 
but  organic  ;  that  the  parts  would  bleed  if  torn  asunder.  Did  one 
poe*  sing  the  quarrel  between  Achilles  and  Agamemnon,  another 
its  consequences,  and  a  third  th,  reconciliation  >  Did  one  poet 
write  the  part  in  which  the  Greeks  were  defeated,  and  another 
balance  it  by  their  success  ?  Did  one  poet  produce  the  Andromache 
of  the  sixth  Iliad,  and  another  re-produce  her  in  the  last  ?  If  the 
unity  of  the  Odyssey  is  admitted,  if  it  is  impossible  to  suppose  that 
one  poet  described  Ulysses  in  Calypso's  Isle  yearning  for  his  home, 
and  that  other  poets  carried  him  through  a  series  of  adventures  to 
the  fulfilment  of  his  desire,  why  should  we  think  a  multiplicity  of 
poets  necessary  to  the  production  of  the  Iliad  ' 

I  almost  as  thoroughly  believe  in  the  common  authorship  of  the 
'wo  poems.  The  theme  of  the  Odyssey  is  more  romantic  and  less 
heroic  than  that  of  the  Iliad,  and  the  style  is  suiti'ble  to  the  subject. 
In  the  !  ist  books  there  is  undoubtedly  a  falling  off,  which  might  be 
the  natural  consequence  of  exhaustion  or  old  age.  But  even  Iiere 
such  passages  as  the  meeting  of  Ulysses  with  his  dog  Argos,  and 

• /AV/i/,  XXII.  199-201. 
« Iliad,  I.  528-530. 


.APR14i9es 


if 


i 


The  Age  of  Hotner  3 

the  comparison  of  the  flitting;  «>f  the  /.mis  of  the  suitors  to  thi  'it- 
ting  of  bats  disturbed  in  their  cranny  '  benpeak  the  peerless  hand. 
There  are,  no  doubt,  nisi  frius  objections  lo  the  common  author- 
ship. But  poetry  is  not  judiciable  in  the  court  of  ww/ //-/><.»■.  Ii  is 
passing  strange,  no  doubt,  that  after  a  ten  years'  siege  I'riam  should 
be  asking  I  leicn  to  point  out  to  hiia  the  chiefs  of  the  fjesieging 
army.  Hut  it  is  not  I'riam,  it  is  the  reatier  or  hearer  of  tho  bard 
who  wants  the  information.  It  is  passing  str.mge  that  in  Sophocles 
Oedipus  should  have  sat  so  long  on  his  throne  without  seeking  to 
know  what  had  become  of  his  preileccssor.  It  is  passing  strange 
that  in  Paradise  Lost  Omnipotence,  having  shut  up  Satan  in  hell, 
should  fail  to  keep  him  thi  re,  and  that  Omniscience  should  lie 
ignorant  of  his  flight.  There  are  discrcpincies  in  the  I  lomeric 
poems  about  the  age  of  Neoptolcmus,  anil  the  chronology  of 
Telomachus'  voyage  of  inquiry  after  his  father,  which  might  be 
damaging  ui.  li  1  l"  "-ensic  cross-examin.ition.  The  strongest  point 
again  *  the  idcnti*.\  of  the  author  of  the  Odyfs,y  and  the  author  ..f 
the  .    ad  is  the  < '  crqian       ibout  the  wife  of  \  lephaestus,  who  in  the 

0,l\     y  she  is  Aphrodite  and  the  heroine 

)mer  makes  pretty  free  with  his  pantheon. 

in  the  1)    auce  against  agreement  in  the 

s-irki   1      kI     )mplex  character  such  as 

!  il  ulentity  of  thought,  .sentiment, 

,    at,  surely,   would  be  the  ch     ces 

fcr.nt  writers  of  two  poems  ei     .1  in 

s  ,uul  harmonizing  in  details  as       have 

•rks  of  the   same  hand.      Inferior  epic 

pre.id  themselves  over  a  wide  canvas, 

lie  ii  -^tory  of  the  Trojan  war  from 

rase     '  *hc  Iliad  and  that  of  the 

V  ca;  ill   the  Iliad,  a  single 


//    .'  is  Chans  while 
of  a  queer  stor\       Hiii 
What  an  these  thii     - 
delineation  of  a  strop 
that  of  Ulysses  ;  or  .t 
manner,  and  vcrsiftca 
agains.  the  production 
scale  and  .so  uniform  in  \_ 
been  generally  taken  f<^i 
writers  of  the  Cycle  cviii^ 
taking  as  their  theme  tlv 
Leda's  egg.      But  alike  in 
Odyssey,  the  writer  prefei  -i  ; 
incident  of  the  siege  of  Troy , 
the  adventures  of  Ulysse:! ;  lli^ 
character,  in  dialogue,  and  in  ful: 
for  common  authorship  might  al 
tion  an!  treatment.     However,  wii 
same  author  or  not,  there  can  be  1 
porary  and  products  of  the  same  scli 
by  the  identity  of  language,  and  tli 
ard  phrases  in  them  both. 

Herodotus,  whose  authority  a 
comn   >nly  accepted,  puts  Homer 

'  Odysiey,  XXIV.  6-9. 


Ill 

Wi   icy.  X  limited  portion  of 
'\iii      n  c.ircful  painting  of 


(kt.iil.     The  case 

irniity  of  selec- 

ins  are  by  the 

ney  are  contcm- 

■^iciently  proved 

.   -^ame  st  snd- 


^itc  of  tl 
\   four  \ 


■ms  IS 
years 


mmmm 


Goldwin  Smith 


and  not  more  before  his  own  time.  Herodotus  is  a  charming  writer ; 
he  gives  us  an  inestimable  picture  of  G  -';k  life ;  but  of  critical 
accuracy  as  to  facw  he  ha;  been  f  ndan'  f  shown  to  be  destitute. 
To  give  one  more  instance,  he  malv  s  th  fleet  of  Xcr.xes  lose  up- 
wards of  seven  hundred  sail  by  battle  or  storm  between  its  arrival 
at  Sepi.is  Aktc  and  its  arrival  at  I'haleruni  Vet  he  tells  us  that  the 
lo.ss  was  made  up  by  contingents  from  C.instus  in  Kuboc.i,  Andros. 
Tcnos,  and  the  other  Cyclades  ;  .so  that  the  number  of  the  fleet  at 
Fhalerum  was  about  what  it  had  been  on  its  arrival  at  Sepias  Aktc. 
Seven  hundred  .sail  from  a  little  town  and  a  few  petty  islands  ! 
T!ie  numbers  of  the  army  of  Xerxes  pass  belief ;  the  details  of  his 
march  are  cvidentl)-  poetic,  and  the  narrative  of  the  battle  of  Mara- 
thon bewilders  the  commentators  and  will  bewilder  them  to  the  end 
of  time.  Yet  the  invasion  of  Greece  by  Xerxes  fe"  .vithin  the  his- 
torian's life-time,  and  he  must  have  had  abundant  dv  jess  to  con- 
temporary information. 

Four  centuries  seems  a  wide  gap  to  be  spanned.  Conip.iriig 
the  language  of  Herodotus  with  that  of  Homer,  and  mak.i^  due 
allowance  for  poetic  form  and  license,  it  appea  s  .ilikcly  ih,  ■  lisre 
should  have  been  so  wide  an  interval  between  wo.     Thc.^  are 

perhaps  in  Homer  from  .,  .Ive  to  twenty  words  which  are  so  archaic, 
that  it  puzzles  the  acumen  of  Buttmann  to  determine  their  meaning. 
There  are  peculiarities  of  inflec  in  and  syntax  of  which  it  would 
be  difficult  to  .say  what  proportions  are  archaic,  poetic,  or  idiosyn- 
cratic. As  to  the  use  of  the  digamma,  Monro  seems  doubtful. 
But  the  language  is  in  all  respects  vitally  the  same  as  that  of  Ionian 
writers,  and  we  can  use  the  Homeric  poems  in  our  schools  and  col- 
leges as  a  text-book  of  poetic  Greek. 

That  there  should  have  been  any  great  tribal  cataclysm  after  the 
composition  of  the  poems  seems  therefore  hardly  possible.  From 
the  time  of  Homer  to  that  of  Pisistratus  the  continuity  of  .ace  and 
langu.iLje  must  apparently  have  remained  unbroken.  This  it  can 
hardly  have  done  for  four  hundred  years.  Had  a  tribal  cataclysm 
taken  place,  the  invading  tribe  would  hardly  have  adopted  the 
heroes,  legends,  and  ballads  of  the  conqueror. 

That  the  art  of  poetry,  or  any  art,  should  have  reached  perfection, 
an  unapproachable  perfection,  at  a  bound  is  incredible.  There  must 
have  been  a  considerable  period  of  preparation  ;  and  if  we  throw  the 
date  of  Homer  back  to  the  dawn  of  Greek  nationality,  where  is  this 
period  to  be  found  ? 

Some  assume  that  Homer  does  not  mention  writing,  ii'  hence 
infer  that  he  lived  before  its  invention.  Had  he  any  occasion  to 
mention  it?     He  surely,  however,  does  mention  it  plainly  enough. 


The  Age  of  ffomcr 


I 


He  says'  that  Bcllcrophon  was  chargcil  hy  Proctus  with  fr.ldcd 
tablets  wherein  Proetus  had  written  things  full  •  "■  deadly  import. 
That  such  poems  as  the  Ilitui  and  the  Oiiys.uy  might  have  been 
transmitted  by  memory  is  undeniable.  Memory,  it  is  t"  '/  said, 
would  be  stronger  before  the  gcr-iral  u.se  of  writing;  ami  even  in 
our  day  we  have  hnd  a  man  who  could  .say  by  heart  a  <»rcat  number 
of  the  plays  of  Shakespeare.  The  difficulty  would  be,  not  n.  the 
transmission  without  writing,  but  in  the  composition.  How  could 
the  adjustment  of  parts,  the  elaboration  of  the  plot,  the  touching  and 
retouching  w'.ich  a  w  .rk  of  high  art  implies,  be  performed  without 
means  of  keeping  the  work  before  the  composer's  mind  ?  Milton 
was  blind  when  he  composed  Paratiise  Lost,  but  it  would  be  written 
down  from  his  dictation  and  read  over  to  him  for  improvement  and 
revision 

Th  .jolitical  era  of  the  Hind  is  plainly  fi.ved.  It  is  the  era  of 
democracy  lifting  its  head  against  n'^bility  and  hereditary  rule. 
Thersites  is  the  democratic  agitator,  haled  by  the  bard  who  sings  in 
royal  or  aristocratic  halls,  and  who  paints  him  a  monster  of  ugliness 
most  hateful  to  a  race  which  a^  red  beauty,  as  well  as  a  paragon  of 
moral  vileness ;  exults  in  the  chastisement  inflicted  on  him.  and 
makes  the  people  sympathize  with  the  chieftain  who  inflict.s  it,  as  he 
undoubtedly  wishes  the  crowd  in  the  agora  would  do.  The  passage 
is  in  spirit  cognate  to  one  in  Theognis.  It  is  not  likely  that  the 
course  of  political  events  shoulu  have  twic  travelled  the  same  round. 
The  chiefs  preside  in  the  public  a.ssembly  d  lead,  >  laps  dictate, 
its  councils ;  but  there  is  a  public  assembly  and  the  need  of  popular 
assent  is  felt.  Public  opinion  is  repeatedly  personified  by  u  ,  as  in 
the  IliadW.  271:  "  luSt  iit  rr;  ttztaxtn  iiiiou  i;  rr^irwi^  dXko],."  Telem- 
achus  in  the  assembly  of  Ithaca  summoned  by  him  makes  a  direct 
appeal  to  the  people.  All  this  bespeaks  a  transition  from  monarchy 
and  aristocracy  to  democracy,  such  as  the  Greek  colonies  in  Asia 
Minor  evidently  underwent,  and  probably  from  their  maritime  and 
adventurous  character,  their  novelty,  and  the  volatile  spirit  which  in 
Herodotus  they  exhibit,  more  rapidly  than  it  was  undergone  by  the 
communities  of  old  Greece. 

Oratory  is  greatly  valued  and  has  reached  high  perfection,  which, 
without  a  popular  audience,  it  could  hardly  have  donr.  The  de- 
scription of  Ulysses  as  an  orator"  indicates  cureful  study  of  the  art. 
Law  is,  like  the  Brehon  law,  traditional  not  statutory;  justice  is 
rudimentary,  being  administered  by  chiefs  or  elders  who  are  jury- 
men as  well  as  judges.     But  the  Greeks  never  showed  much  apti- 

•  ///W,  VI.  lOg. 

•  //>a</,  III.  216-224. 


6  (Jo/(iu'iii  Siin'fh 

tiitlc  for  jurisprudence;  nor  did  they  ever  arrive  at  the  separation 
of  tiie  functions  of  the  \\idge  from  those  of  the  jury.  The  Areo- 
pajjus  and  the  Meliaea  were  jury-courts  without  a  judge,  the  Hehaea 
on  a  democratic  footing  and  scale. 

That  I  [omer  had  predecessors,  that  his  art  did  not  spring  into 
existence  out  of  a  void,  we  might  be  sure  without  his  telling  us. 
However,  he  tells  us  so  himself  when  he  prays  to  the  Muse,  to  im- 
part to  him  iilsi)  his  share  of  her  lore  :  "  nui  iiimth).  yi,  H-i'i.  OjyuTso 
Jui;,  sirs  xui  /^,«?^."'  Hoth  in  the  //itu/  and  in  the  0(()'sscj',  but  espe- 
cially in  the  ///W,  he  clearly  assumes  that  the  characters  whom  he 
is  bringing  on  the  scene  arc  already  known  to  his  audience.  Patro- 
clus  is  introduced  by  him  as  "  Menoetiades."  He  does  not,  before 
proceeding  to  sing  the  wrath  of/  Miles,  tell  you  who  Achilles  was, 
who  Agamemnon  was,  or  what  brought  them  together  on  the  scene. 
The  siege  of  Troy  was  evidently  a  theme  as  familiar  to  '  -  a  idience 
as  the  siege  of  Jerusalem  would  be  to  the  audience  o'  ;o. 

Art  in  the  Homeric  poems  is  evidently  ideal.  The  shield  of 
Achilles  utterly  transcends  anything  of  which  relics  have  been  left 
or  that  possibly  could  have  been  created  in  that,  or  indeed  in  any, 
day.  But  ideals  are  not  found  without  some  reality  to  suggest  and 
support  them,  .\esthetic  aspirations  at  all  events  were  high.  If 
with  these  advn  ccs  toward  intellectual  civilization  we  are  suqmsed 
at  finding  homicide  prevalent  and  punished  .iily  as  a  private  wrong 
by  private  vengeance,  piracy  and  marauding  licensed,  a  general  re- 
liance for  security  on  the  strong  hand  rather  than  on  public  law,  no 
quarter  given  in  battle,  and  such  atrocities  as  the  dragging  of  Hec- 
tor behind  the  chariot  of  Achilles  round  the  walls  of  Troy,  the 
sacrifice  of  twelve  Trojan  captives  at  the  funeral  of  Patroclus,  or  the 
hideou.--  acts  of  vengeance  committed  by  Ulysses  in  the  Oc/vssiv, 
we  may  bear  in  mind  that  in  Italy  contemporary  with  the  divine 
artists,  the  famous  writers,  and  the  pioneers  of  science  were  the  life 
of  crime  and  violence  depicted  in  the  Memoirs  of  Benvenuto  Cellini, 
the  hunger  tower,  the  torture-houses  of  the  Visconti,  the  Borgias, 
and  the  Bravi.  At  Athens,  in  her  most  intellectual  era,  there  is 
much  savagery.  The  people  vote  the  massacre  of  the  wiiole  of 
Mitylene  ;  they  actually  massacre  all  the  Mitylenians  who  had  come 
into  their  own  hands.  They  massacre  the  Melians  for  simply  stand- 
ing a  siege.  The  factions  at  Corcyra  behaved  like  Red  Indians. 
Human  sacrifice  had  ceased,  but  the  existence  of  the  word  <fui>ii>ixo;, 
a  scape-goat,  shows  that  it  had  not  been  unknown  at  Athens.  The 
license  of  piracy  when  exercised  against  foreign  ships  was  prolonged 
well  into  historic  times.-     Alexander,  the  much  adored,  not  only 

'  ft/iM/c,  I.  lo.  'Herodotus,  I.  i66. 


,v 


The  Age  of  I/oiner 


:) 


I 


emulated  but  greatly  surpassed  the  atrociof  freatment  of  Hector's 
body  by  Achilles,  when  he  dragged  .>.  living  Hatis,  with  holes 
bored  through  his  feet,  behind  a  chariot  driven  by  himself  amidst 
the  acclamations  of  his  army. 

The  relation  of  the  Greeks  in  the  ///(/(/  to  the  Trojans  antl  their 
Asiatic  allies  is  remarkable.  The  Asiatics  are  enemies,  and  they 
are  inferior  to  the  Greeks  in  military  di.sciplinc  :  but  they  are  not 
barbarous  or  objects  of  contempt;  far  from  it.  Priam,  Hector, 
Aeneas  are  perfectly  on  a  par  with  their  Greek  counterparts.  The 
parting  of  a  Trojan  chief  from  his  wife  is  the  subject  of  the  mo.st 
beautiful  picture  in  the  Iliait  Troy  is  the  peculiar  object  of  regard 
to  the  Hellenic  Zeus.  Athene  is  worshipped  in  Troy.  language 
is  no  barrier  between  the  Greek  and  the  Trojan  chiefs.  Paris,  the 
guilty  author  of  the  war,  is  a  gay  Lothario,  rather  contemptible  but 
not  hateful,  on  the  contrary  amusing  and  attractive  in  his  way. 
The  Greek  Diomed  and  the  Asiatic  Glaucus  are  bound  by  an  an- 
cestral tie  of  friendship  to  each  other.  This  would  .seem  to  accord 
pretty  well  with  the  relation  of  the  Greeks  to  the  I.ydian  dynasties 
as  depicted  by  Herodotus.  Two  chiefs  of  the  Trojan  alliance, 
Aeneas,  chief  of  the  Dardanians  and  Sarpedon,  chief  of  the  I._\cians, 
arc  sons  of  Hellenic  deities  ;  Aeneas  of  Aphrodite,  Sarpedon  of 
Zeus.  In  the  Dardanian  dynasty  Homer  evidently  felt  a  local 
interest.  Fiom  Strabo's  account  of  the  Lycian  Confederation  it 
would  seem  that  the  Lycians  were  Hellenized.  This  could  hardly 
have  taken  place  in  a  very  prehi-storic  age. 

It  has  been  said  that  iron  is  scarce  in  Homer  and  that  he  there- 
fore belongs  to  the  copper  age.  Copper  is  the  prevalent  metal  and 
the  material  of  armor;  but  iron  does  not  appear  to  be  very  scarce.' 
The  proverbial  phrase  "  iron  heart"-  seems  also  to  show  familiarity 
with  iron.  The  axles  of  the  chariots  are  of  iron  ;  the  clash  of  battle 
is  described  as  "  tnor^into;  oinnayoo;."  ^  Little,  therefore,  can  be 
based  in  this  case  on  the  metallic  distinction  of  eras. 

Homer  tells  you  distinctly  that  his  story  belongs  not  to  his  own 
age  but  to  an  heroic  age  that  is  passed.  The  men  of  his  own  time 
are  degenerate  ;  they  cannot  wield  such  weapons  as  the  heroes 
wielded  or  hurl  such  stones  as  the  heroes  hurled.'  To  what  extent 
the  reproduction  of  the  past  goes  we  can  hardly  divine.  IJut  the 
war  of  single  combats  is  pretty  clearly  a  part  of  it.  In  Virgil, 
tl  rough  the  descriptions  of  the  camp  of  Aeneas,  Roman  ca.strame- 
tation  is  seen.     In  the  ///V.-r/,  beside  the  chivalrous  war  of  single 

•//;W,  .XXIII.  SJ4. 

'  //ill,/,  XXIV.  205,  501  .mil  el.-twliere. 

»//;Vi,/,  XVII.  424. 

«  J/i.iJ,  V.  304  and  XIX.  389. 


8 


Goldwin  Smith 


combats,  we  see  the  republican  phalanx  marshalled  and  moving  in 
serried  order  to  battle,  though  when  brought  upon  the  field  it  seems 
for  the  most  part  to  stand  at  gaze  while  the  chieftains  on  both  sides 
come  forward,  in  the  fashion  of  an  age  of  chivalry,  to  encounter  each 
other.  Perhaps  the  Gargantuan  feasts  with  their  enormous  masses 
of  meat,  strongly  contrasted  with  "light  Attic  fare,"  belong  also  to 
the  heroic  past.  The  prediction  that  the  descendants  of  Aeneas 
should  reign  in  Dardania'  is  evidently  history  in  the  guise  of  proph- 
ecy and  throws  back  the  heroic  founder  of  the  Ime  to  an  age  far 
anterior  to  that  of  the  poet. 

Homer's  ships  are  more  intensely  real  than  his  horses.  About 
the  horses  there  is  a  good  deal  that  is  mythical.  Some  of  them 
are  of  divine  lineage.  They  talk  and  weep.  Andromache  gives 
Hector's  horses  wine  as  if  it  were  a  familiar  practice.  The  ships 
on  the  other  hand  are  intensely  real.  Homer  evidently  revels  in 
everything  nautical ;  in  the  details  of  ship-building,  in  the  handling 
of  the  galley,  in  the  even  sweep  of  her  oars,  in  her  bounding  over 
the  dark  blue  wave  which  roars  round  her  as  she  speeds  upon  her 
way. 

"  £v  o  iKifiu;  zofftit),  futroi,  :(TTcoi/,  dfufi  <is  x'Jiui 
<rr£!/'j  -oiiifjotov  inyd}!  iityt  ),r^o;  cvjtn^;- 
if  ti'itiitv  xazfi  x'jiiu  oMZ/ir^fKto'jfru  xs/.s'jHou."  ^ 

The  broad-built  merchantman  (<foiiT!i!o;  si)i>slr^; )"  is  distinguished 
from  the  swift  galley  showing  an  advanced  state  of  naval  construc- 
tion. The  descriptions  of  the  sea  and  nautical  similes  are  always 
full  of  intense  life.  This  designates  the  writer  as  a  native  of  one  of 
the  maritime  colonies  in  Asia  Minor. 

It  would  seem  that  religious  faith  in  Homer's  time  was  in  an 
advanced  stage  of  decay,  and  was  giving  way  to  a  light  scepticism 
which  permitted  fun  to  be  made  of  the  deities.  We  are  prepared 
for  a  good  deal  in  the  way  of  sincere  anthropomorphism,  as  well  as 
of  moral  obliquities  in  gods  made  by  man  after  his  own  image.  But 
can  we  suppose  that  an  intellect  of  such  depth  as  that  of  Homer  is 
not  making  fun  of  the  deities  when  he  represents  Zeus  as  gaily  re- 
counting to  Here  his  wandering  loves,  and  as  challenging  the  whole 
pantheon  to  a  "  tug  of  war  ";  when  he  makes  gods  cuff  each  other  or 
be  wounded  by  men ;  when  he  tells  us  the  story  of  Ares  and  Aph- 
rodite committing  crim.  con.  and  being  captured  by  the  injured 
Hephaestus  amid  the  general  laughter  of  Olympus  ?  Formal  rev- 
erence is  still  paid  to  the  gods,  and  they  are  acknowledged  as  up- 

>  Jtiad,  XX.  308. 
'Iliad,  I.  481-483 
'Odyssey,  V.  250. 


■J 


The  Age  of  Homer  9 

holders  of  the  right  and  avengers  of  wrong.  The  bch'ef  in  omens 
still  prevails,  and  is  used  for  a  poetic  purpose  ;  but  Hector  is  made  to 
say  that  he  cares  little  for  them  and  that  the  best  of  all  omens  is 
to  be  fighting  for  one's  country.  The  freedom  of  personification 
which  produces  such  beings  as  Ate,  l-Iris,  and  Litai  (pra)crs)  also 
looks  like  a  sign  of  a  mind  little  trammelled  by  belief  in  the  pan- 
theon. Here  again  we  surely  find  ourselves  in  contact  with  an  age 
of  thought  far  from  primeval,  as  well  as  with  the  light  and  sceptical 
spirit  of  the  Asiatic  Greek. 

The  Catalogue  of  the  Ships,  as  it  is  called,  remains  a  puzzle  on 
any  hypothesis,  and  a  puzzle  on  any  hypothesis  it  is  likely  to  remain. 
Of  all  passages  in  the  Iliad  it  is  the  one  most  easily  detached,  and 
the  one  the  authenticity  of  which  is  mo.st  questioned,  though  its  char- 
acter seems  to  mcto  be  Homeric.  The  ])oct  appeals  to  the  muses 
for  his  knowledge  of  the  facts,  and  the  mu.ses  onh-  could  have  im- 
parted to  him  the  mythical  muster-roll  of  the  mythical  fleet  of 
Agamemnon.  Its  ethnography  extends  to  the  Asiatics  as  well  as  to 
the  Greeks.  It  describes  the  I'eloponnesus  as  it  was  before  the 
Dorian  invasion,  a  group  of  old  Greek  principalities  under  a  sort  of 
suzerainty  of  the  Lords  of  Mycenae,  without  Dorian  ascendancy  or 
he  Dorian  Sparta.  Whether  its  ethnography  is  correct  or  is  as 
loose  as  Homer's  topography  of  the  Troad,  wc  have  no  means  of 
ascertaining.  He  was  not  a  cartographer,  but  a  highly  imaginative 
poet.  A  refugee  from  the  Dorian  invasion  might  naturally  speak 
of  the  land  of  his  origin  as  it  was  before  the  conquest.  lUit  on  this 
point  we  are  in  the  dark  and  in  the  dark  we  are  likely  to  remain. 

All  dates  before  the  first  Olympiad  {"J^d  H.  C.)  are  uncertain, 
among  the  re.st  that  of  the  Dorian  invasion  of  Peloponnesus,  dis- 
lodged by  which,  and  perhaps  by  other  tribal  disturbances,  Greeks, 
carrying  with  them  the  civilization  which  has  left  its  monuments  at 
Mycenae,  emigrated  to  the  coast  of  Asia  Minor  and  there  founded 
little  maritime  commonwealths. 

There  can  be  no  doubt  that  the  author  of  the  Iliad  was  a  deni- 
zen of  the  north  coast  of  Asia  Minor.  The  north  and  west  winds 
blow  to  him  from  Thrace.'  He  plainly  claims  a  personal  knowledge 
of  the  Troad  : 

l(i-t  lis  Tt;  zi>or:(iiiutHi  zo?.io;  uizsTu  xo/.o'ii'r^.' 

The  perpetuation  of  the  dynasty  of  Aeneas  seems  also,  as  has  been 
.said,  to  be  a  local  touch.  In  the  Odjssej',  speaking  of  Ithaca  and  the 
adjacent  islands,  Homer  is  evidently  beyond  the  range  of  his  geo- 
graphical knowledge.  His  slighting  mention  of  Miletus  as  in  the 
I  //<W,  IX.  5,  «///*/,  II.  Su. 


lO 


Goldivin  Smith 


hands  of  Carians,  which,  however,  it  had  been  before  the  Greek  in- 
vasion of  Asia  Minor,  seems  to  indicate  that  he  belonged,  not  to  the 
Ionian,  but  to  the  Aeolian,  settlements,  though  he  might  be  familiar 
with  both,  and  by  his  intercourse  wiili  the  lonians  afford  them 
ground  for  claiming  him  as  a  denizen. 

The  siege  of  Troy  would  be  a  natural  subject  for  a  poet  belong- 
ing to  one  of  the  maritime  cities  of  Asia  Minor  whose  land  had  been 
won  in  war  from  the  Asiatics.  Equally  congenial  to  him  would  be 
a  story  of  maritime  adventure  such  as  that  which  is  told  in  the 
Odyssey.  Hut  whether  Homer  was  an  Aeolian  or  an  Ionian,  it  would 
seem  that  the  perfection  of  his  art,  the  advance  of  national  culture 
which  the  existence  of  such  art  implies,  the  refinement  of  his  senti- 
ment, the  picture  of  civilization  which  he  presents,  and  his  treatment 
of  the  popular  religion,  point  to  a  later  date  and  ■  nc  nearer  to  tlie 
Ionian  lyricists  and  philosophers  than  Herodotus  believed  or  is  gen- 
erally supposed.  Settle  the  question  as  we  will,  however,  the  Ho- 
meric poems  are  miracles,  and  so  is  Greek  art.  Phidias  is  hardly 
less  miraculous  than  Homer. 

GoLDwix  Smith. 


